MacbethA cursed play…….

Origins• Those who believe in the curse claim that real spells are cast in the three

witches scene. Some believers claim that including the character Hecate, frequently cut from productions of the play due to questions about her part's authorship, intensifies the curse.

Origins• Productions of Macbeth are said to have been

plagued with accidents, many ending in death. According to legend, this dates back to the premiere of the play: an actor died because a real dagger was mistakenly used instead of the prop. The play does include more fight scenes and other such opportunities for accidents than does the average play, and the atmosphere in the backstage area of old-fashioned theaters was a prime setting for disasters, especially when dealing with potentially dangerous equipment. This would explain the accidents without invoking magic.

Origins• The popularity of the superstition might also be related to

its mild hazing aspect. Veteran actors might relate some tale of woe that they witnessed personally due to someone invoking the curse, lending credibility and immediacy to the tale.

• One hypothesis for the origin of this superstition is that Macbeth, being a popular play, was commonly put on by theatres in danger of going out of business, or that the high production costs of Macbeth put the theatre in financial trouble. An association was made between the production of Macbeth and theatres going out of business.

Origins• According to the superstition, Shakespeare got a few of the lines

from an actual coven of witches and when they saw the play they were greatly offended and cursed the play. Another tradition tells that the original propmaster could not find a suitable pot for a cauldron and stole one from a coven, who then cursed the play in revenge for the theft. It is believed that breaking the taboo calls the ghosts of the three witches to the show and it is they who cause all the mishaps. The last, and probably most spectacular view of the curse is that Shakespeare used the curse in the play to actually curse the play himself, guaranteeing that no one other than himself would be able to direct the play. Another line of thought is that if your play was a flop, the manager of the theatre would take the show off and would always be able to get a theatre company to put on Macbeth as it was always a hit.

Synopsis• The first act of the play opens amidst thunder

and lightning, with the Three Witches deciding that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded captain reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals Macbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquo have just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the rebel Macdonwald. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess.

Synopsis• The scene changes. Macbeth and Banquo enter, discussing the

weather and their victory ("So foul and fair a day I have not seen"). As they wander onto a heath, the three Witches enter, who have been waiting to greet them with prophecies. Even though it is Banquo who first challenges them, they address Macbeth. The first Witch hails Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis", the second as "Thane of Cawdor", and the third proclaims that he shall "be King hereafter". Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence, so again Banquo challenges them. The Witches inform Banquo he shall father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the Witches vanish, and another Thane, Ross, a messenger from the King, arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title—Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled. Immediately, Macbeth begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king.

Synopsis

• Macbeth writes to his wife about the Witches' prophecies. When Duncan decides to stay at the Macbeths' castle at Inverness, Lady Macbeth hatches a plan to murder him and secure the throne for her husband. Although Macbeth raises concerns about the regicide, Lady Macbeth eventually persuades him, by challenging his manhood, to follow her plan.

Synopsis• On the night of the king's visit, Macbeth kills Duncan. The deed is

not seen by the audience, but it leaves Macbeth so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by planting bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive.[1] A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's corpse. In a feigned fit of anger, Macbeth murders the guards before they can protest their innocence. Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth, but does not reveal his suspicions publicly. Fearing for their lives, Duncan's sons flee, Malcolm to England and his brother Donalbain to Ireland. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman of the dead king.

Synopsis

• Despite his success, Macbeth remains uneasy about the prophecy about Banquo. So Macbeth invites him to a royal banquet and discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. He hires two men to kill them. A third murderer appears mysteriously in the park before the murder. While the assassins kill Banquo, Fleance escapes. At the banquet, Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Only Macbeth can see the spectre; the rest panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth orders them to leave.

Synopsis• Macbeth, disturbed, goes to the Witches once more.

They conjure up three spirits with three further warnings and prophecies, which tell him to "beware Macduff", but also that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" and he will "never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him". Since Macduff is in exile in England, Macbeth assumes that he is safe; so he puts to death everyone in Macduff's castle, including Macduff's wife and their young children.

• Lady Macbeth becomes wracked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. In a famous scene, she sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows.

Synopsis• In England, Malcolm and Macduff are informed by Ross that "your

castle is surprised, your wives and babes savagely slaughtered." Macbeth, now viewed as a tyrant, sees many of his thanes defecting. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen Siward (the Elder), the Earl of Northumberland, against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers, thus fulfilling the Witches' third prophecy. Meanwhile, Macbeth delivers a famous soliloquy ("Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow") upon his learning of Lady Macbeth's death (the cause is undisclosed, and it is assumed by some that she committed suicide, as Malcolm's final reference to her reveals "'tis thought, by self and violent hands / took off her life").

Synopsis• A battle culminates in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's

confrontation with Macbeth. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd" (i.e., born by Caesarean section) and was therefore not "of woman born". Macbeth realizes, too late, the Witches have misled him. Macduff beheads Macbeth off stage and thereby fulfills the last of the prophecies.

• Although Malcolm is placed on the throne and not Fleance, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo, "Thou shalt [be]get kings", was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true, for James I of England (also James VI of Scotland) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.

Synopsis

• Macbeth has been compared to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Both Antony and Macbeth as characters seek a new world, even at the cost of the old one. Both are fighting for a throne and have a 'nemesis' to face in order to achieve that throne. For Antony the nemesis is Octavius, whereas for Macbeth it is Banquo. At one point Macbeth even compares himself to Antony, saying "under Banquo / My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said / Mark Antony's was by Caesar." Lastly, both plays contain powerful female figures: Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth.

Synopsis• Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in Holinshed's

Chronicles, a popular history of the British Isles known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In Chronicles, a man named Donwald finds several of his family put to death by his king, King Duff, for dealing with witches. After being pressured by his wife, he and four of his servants kill the King in his own house. In the "Chronicles", Macbeth is portrayed as struggling to maintain the kingdom in the face of King Duncan's ineptitude. He and Banquo meet the three witches, who make exactly the same prophecies as in Shakespeare's version. Macbeth and Banquo then together plot the murder of Duncan, at Lady Macbeth's urging. Macbeth has a long, ten-year reign before eventually being overthrown by Macduff and Malcolm. The parallels between the two versions are clear. However, some scholars think that George Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia matches Shakespeare's version more closely. Buchanan's work was available in Latin in Shakespeare's day.

Synopsis• No other version of the story has Macbeth kill

the king in Macbeth's own castle. Scholars have seen this change of Shakespeare's as adding to the darkness of Macbeth's crime as the worst violation of hospitality. Versions of the story that were common at the time had Duncan being killed in an ambush at Inverness, not in a castle. Shakespeare conflated the story of Donwald and King Duff in what was a significant change to the story.

Synopsis• Shakespeare made another revealing change. In the Chronicles,

Banquo is an accomplice in Macbeth's murder of King Duncan. He also plays an important part in ensuring that Macbeth, not Malcolm, takes the throne in the coup that follows.In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to be a direct ancestor of the Stuart King James I.The Banquo portrayed in historical sources is significantly different from the Banquo created by Shakespeare. Critics have proposed several reasons for this change. First, to portray the king's ancestor as a murderer would have been risky. Second, Shakespeare may have altered Banquo's character simply because there was no dramatic need for another accomplice to the murder; there was, however, a need to provide a dramatic contrast to Macbeth—a role which many scholars argue is filled by Banquo.Other authors of the time who wrote about Banquo, such as Jean de Schelandre in his , also changed history by portraying Banquo as a noble man rather than a murderer, probably for the same reasons.

Synopsis• Macbeth cannot be dated precisely owing to significant evidence of later

revisions. Many scholars conjecture the likely date of composition to be between 1603 and 1606. As the play seems to be aimed at celebrating King James's ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo), they argue that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603; and suggest that the parade of eight kings—which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV—is a compliment to King James. Other editors conjecture a more specific date of 1605–6, the principal reasons being possible allusions to the Gunpowder Plot and its ensuing trials. The Porter's speech (Act II, scene III, lines1-21), in particular, may contain allusions to the trial of the Jesuit Henry Garnet in spring, 1606; "equivocator" (line 8) may refer to Garnet's defence of "equivocation" [see: Doctrine of mental reservation], and "farmer" (4) to one of Garnet's aliases. However, "farmer" is a common word, and the concept of "equivocation" was also the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor Lord Burghley, and of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martin Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.

Synopsis• Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James

at Oxford in the summer of 1605 that featured three "sibyls" like the weird sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the weird sisters. However, A. R. Braunmuller in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605-6 arguments inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603. The play is not considered to have been written any later than 1607, since, as Kermode notes, there are "fairly clear allusions to the play in 1607." The earliest account of a performance of the play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing it at the Globe Theatre.

Synopsis• Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio of 1623 and the Folio is

the only source for the text. The text that survives had been plainly altered by later hands. Most notable is the inclusion of two songs from Thomas Middleton's play The Witch (1615); Middleton is conjectured to have inserted an extra scene involving the witches and Hecate, for these scenes had proven highly popular with audiences. These revisions, which since the Clarendon edition of 1869 have been assumed to include all of Act III, scene v, and a portion of Act IV, scene I, are often indicated in modern texts. On this basis, many scholars reject all three of the interludes with the goddess Hecate as inauthentic. Even with the Hecate material, the play is conspicuously short, and so the Folio text may derive from a prompt book that had been substantially cut for performance, or an adapter cut the text himself.

Playwright • Introduction - The play and the image displayed in

the pictureThis section is dedicated to Macbeth, the play by William Shakespeare. The picture is 18th century and image displayed represents the essence of the play which, we hope, will bring to life a famous scene or character from the play. The information provided in this section of william-shakespeare.info includes famous quotes / quotations, summary of the plot or story, facts about the play, a list of the cast and characters and access to the full text - script of the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Playwright• Summary of the plot or story

A thunderstorm and three witches conclude a meeting. They decide to confront the great Scottish general Macbeth on his victorious return from a war between Scotland and Norway. The Scottish king, Duncan, decides that he will confer the title of the traitorous Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth. 

Macbeth, and another General called Banquo, happen upon the three witches. The witches predict that he will one day become king. They also predict that Banquo will beget a line of kings, although will not ascend the throne himself. King Duncan arranges to visit him at his castle. Macbeth cannot stop thinking about the witches' prediction that he will become king and decides that he will murder Duncan. Macbeth's wife agrees to his plan. 

Playwright• Duncan arrives at the castle with his entourage but he has second

thoughts about the murder plot. The forceful Lady Macbeth holds him to his vow to kill Duncan and further encourages him. She then summons evil spirits to "unsex" her and fortify her with cruelty. He then murders Duncan assisted by his wife who smears the blood of Duncan on the daggers of the sleeping guards. 

A nobleman called Macduff discovers the body. Before investigation can take place Macbeth kills the guards insisting that their daggers smeared with Duncan's blood are proof that they committed the murderous crime. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, do not believe their father, however, fearing for their lives, they flee Scotland. This makes them appear guilty so the crown passes to Macbeth. 

Playwright• He remembers the prophecy of the witches that Banquo will beget a line of kings So he sends

hired assassins to murder Banquo and his sons Donalbain and Fleance. Fleance, is the only one to escape with his life.

At a feast the bloodied ghost of Banquo appears to Macbeth but to no one else causing Macbeth to act and speak strangely. His wife sends the guests away. 

Macbeth plagued by the fear of being discovered begins to suspect that Macduff, a nobleman who refused to attend the feast suspects him. He meets with the witches again and they confirm that he has good reason to fear Macduff but they soothe his fears by telling him that no born of woman can harm him.

After meeting with the witches he learns that Macduff is urging Duncan's son, Malcolm, to reclaim the throne. In revenge, he has Macduff's wife and son murdered. Macduff organizes an army to bring down Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth's conscience now begins to torture her and she imagines that she can see her hands covered with blood. She commits suicide.

Macbeth meets Macduff in hand-to-hand combat confident that he will win the day because ''none born of woman'' can harm him. Macduff then reveals that he was not ''of woman born'' but was ''untimely ripp'd'' from his mother's womb. Macduff kills Macbeth and the witches prediction proves true. Malcolm becomes king. The themes discussed are ambition, fate, deception and treachery.

Information provided about the play

Playwright• Information provided about the play

William Shakespeare never published any of his plays and therefore none of the original manuscripts have survived. Eighteen unauthorised versions of his plays were, however, published during his lifetime in quarto editions by unscrupulous publishers (there were no copyright laws protecting Shakespeare and his works during the Elizabethan era). A collection of his works did not appear until 1623 (a full seven years after Shakespeare's death on April 23, 1616) when two of his fellow actors, John Hemminges and Henry Condell, posthumously recorded his work and published 36 of William’s plays in the First Folio. Some dates are therefore approximate other dates are substantiated by historical events, records of performances and the dates plays appeared in print.

Costumes• Macbeth Costume Basics• • With its tunic, this Robin Hood costume is appropriate for Macbeth.• Macbeth is based on the story of Macbeth (also known as Mac Bethad mac Findlaich), a Scottish

king who lived from 1005 to 1057. This time period is often categorized as "early Gothic." According to Costumes.org, the period in Western Europe was characterized by wearing a shorter tunic

• over a long tunic. • Sleeves are wide on clothing for both men and women, and there is a lot more fabric used in

costumes than had been in the past. The bottom of tunics also tended to be wide or circular shaped. The influence of Celtic peoples was also prominent in the clothing of the time.

• Of course, costumes are not always historically accurate, and plays are not always set in the time in which the action took place or when the original play was written. Your Macbeth costumes might include modern outfits, Elizabethan costumes, or come from any other time period of your choosing.

• Inspiration for Macbeth Costumes• If you're looking for a better idea of how other people have dressed to perform Macbeth, the

Internet is a wonderful source of inspiration. Many theater companies large and small post pictures of their costumes and sets on their websites, which can give you a good idea of how you might like your Macbeth costumes to turn out.

Food

Info About Macbeth• Origins and family

• Main article: Mormaer of Moray• Macbeth was the son of Findláech mac Ruaidrí, Mormaer of Moray. His

mother, who is not mentioned in contemporary sources, is sometimes supposed to have been a daughter of the Scottish king Malcolm II (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda). This may be derived from Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland which makes Macbeth's mother a granddaughter, rather than a daughter, of Malcolm.[3]

• Findláech was killed in 1020. According to the Annals of Ulster he was killed by his own people while the Annals of Tigernach say that the sons of his brother Máel Brigte were responsible. One of these sons, Máel Coluim son of Máel Brigte, died in 1029. A second son, Gille Coemgáin, was killed in 1032, burned in a house with fifty of his men. Gille Coemgáin had been married to Gruoch with whom he had a son, the future king Lulach. It has been proposed that Gille Coemgáin's death was the doing of Mac Bethad, in revenge for his father's death, or of Máel Coluim son of Cináed, to rid himself of a rival.

Info About Macbeth• Final years

• In 1052, Macbeth was involved indirectly in the strife in the Kingdom of England between Godwin, Earl of Wessex and Edward the Confessor when he received a number of Norman exiles from England in his court, perhaps becoming the first king of Scots to introduce feudalism to Scotland. In 1054, Edward's Earl of Northumbria, Siward, led a very large invasion of Scotland. The campaign led to a bloody battle in which the Annals of Ulster report 3,000 Scots and 1,500 English dead, which can be taken as meaning very many on both sides, and one of Siward's sons and a son-in-law were among the dead. The result of the invasion was that one Máel Coluim, "son of the king of the Cumbrians" (not to be confused with Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, the future Malcolm III of Scotland) was restored to his throne, i.e., as ruler of the kingdom of Strathclyde. It may be that the events of 1054 are responsible for the idea, which appears in Shakespeare's play, that Malcolm III was put in power by the English.

• Macbeth certainly survived the English invasion, for he was defeated and mortally wounded or killed by the future Malcolm III on the north side of the Mounth in 1057, after retreating with his men over the Cairnamounth Pass to take his last stand at the battle at Lumphanan.[23] The Prophecy of Berchán has it that he was wounded and died at Scone, sixty miles to the south, some days later.Macbeth's stepson Lulach mac Gille Coemgáin was installed as king soon after.

Info About Macbeth• Life to legend

• Main articles: Macbeth and Macbeth (character)• • • Macbeth and the witches by Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli) (1741-1825)• Macbeth's life, like that of King Duncan I, had progressed far towards legend by the end of the 14th century, when

John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun wrote their histories. Hector Boece, Walter Bower, and George Buchanan all contributed to the legend.

• The influence of William Shakespeare's Macbeth towers over mere histories, and has made the name of Macbeth famous. In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is portrayed as a good-hearted general to King Duncan, but who is corrupted by ambition and persuades himself that to kill his King is the right thing to do. He is cruelly deceived by three witches, ensuring his wicked scheme is doomed to failure. Even his wife (Lady Macbeth) has gained some fame along the way, lending her Shakespeare-given title to a short story by Nikolai Leskov and the opera by Dmitri Shostakovich entitled Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The historical content of Shakespeare's play is drawn from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which in turn borrows from Boece's 1527 Scotorum Historiae, which flattered the antecedents of Boece's patron, King James V of Scotland.

• In modern times, Dorothy Dunnett's novel King Hereafter aims to portray a historical Macbeth, but proposes that Macbeth and his rival and sometime ally Thorfinn of Orkney are one and the same (Thorfinn is his birth name and Macbeth is his baptismal name). 's play Macbeth Speaks 1997, a reworking of his earlier Macbeth Speaks, is a monologue delivered by the historical Macbeth, aware of what Shakespeare and posterity have done to him. Scottish author Nigel Tranter based one of his historical novels on the historical figure, MacBeth the King.

• [edit] Notes